조선후기 노비 家系와 婢 - 筆巖書院 <奴婢譜>의 분석을 통하여 -

Abstract

This study aimed at looking into a system in the late Joseon era which enabled slave lineage to continue to exist and the roles of female slaves in the system on the basis of <Nobibo> which has been preserved in Pilam Academy. <Nobibo>, a record of slaves possessed by academies, was created in the form of clan register in the mid 18th century. Of slaves included in the record, 230slaves who had inherited their status from their ancestors were subjected to an analysis. According to the results, the ratio of the continuity of slave lineage via female slaves to the continuity via male ones stood at 2.5, though the number of female slaves was similar to that of their male counterparts. This reflects the custom initiated in the Goryeo that commoners or the lowborn inherited their mothers’ status and that the lowborn belonged to those who had the ownership of their mothers. In <Nobibo>, the custom is observed while slave lineage continues via mothers or the female slaves of academies. The offspring of the marriage between a male slave of an academy and a female slave of an academy belonged to those who had ownership of their mothers. This is considered to have rooted in the practice in the late Joseon era that those who owned slaves identified and managed slaves by a family line to maintain their ownership of slaves in the face of a continuing decline in the number of slaves. It can be said that <Nobibo> is an example showing that it was the owners of slaves who managed and maintained slave lineages. The analysis on <Nobibo> showed that female slaves in the late Joseon era served as a medium for a system enabling slave lineage to continue to exist as one of methods to manage private slaves. In this regard, female slaves were more restrained by the traditional slavery system than their male counterparts until the system was completely abolished.